Author Archive

Whenever I tell people about the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton, I tell them to stop reading after the eighth book — before they get to the muddled middle that was everything from Cerulean Sins through about Hit List. Things started to get better around there, but not as good as the first books.

This review contains spoilers for the original fairy tale version of Cinderella, as well as the 1950 Disney animated version. It also contains minor spoilers for the short film Frozen Fever.

As both Honest Trailers and CinemaSins have recently shown, there are some problems with Disney’s retelling of the Cinderella story. But it’s such a huge part of the Disney empire that we were bound to get a new one at some point.

The following review contains spoilers for Kick-Ass. It also contains adult language, due to the name of one of the characters. Reader discretion is advised.

In my reviews of movies here on the site, one thing I always try to mention is the film’s soundtrack. Much as some people writing about Firefly say that the ship is a character, so too is the music in any TV show or film. And sometimes movies that get little or no play can have great soundtracks.

In a world where superheroes and supervillains are locked in honorable combat… in a world where science and magic are both real… in a world where superheroism is an inherited trait… three middle-school students are about to discover their true potential.

When I was offered the opportunity to review Ghosts of Engines Past, a short-story collection by one of my favorite authors, Sean McMullen, the initial e-mail said it was a steampunk anthology. I suppose this is broadly true, in much the same way that an anthology about veterinarians might be 80 percent dog stories. In this case, the 80 percent is stories of flight.

And if there’s one thing McMullen knows how to do, it’s make people fly.

When Joss Whedon writes something, you generally expect it to have great dialogue and characterization, some stuff that will make you uncomfortable, and an ending that, while not necessarily happy or good, will be satisfying.

Nostalgia is a weird genre. It can be hard to hit a large audience because not everyone is nostalgic about the same things. But it’s safe to say that most people who’ve played video games are nostalgic about the games they played as kids — and that’s the sweet spot where we find Brent Black, a.k.a. brentalfloss, and his third album, Flossophy.